1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an Fe-based soft magnetic alloy applied to a magnetic core (dust core) of a transformer or a choke coil for a power supply.
2. Description of the Related Art
Dust cores using Fe metallic powder, Fe—Ni alloy powder, Fe—Al—Si alloy powder, or the like which are applied to electronic components and the like require a low core loss and excellent DC-superposed characteristics due to increases in frequency and current in recent years.
The dust cores are formed by solidifying soft magnetic alloy powder into a desired shape using a binding material and therefore have a lower core loss than that of a magnetic core according to the related art formed by winding or laminating a ribbon material and has a degree of freedom of the shape thereby obtaining better saturation magnetization than that of a ferrite core. Since the soft magnetic alloy powder which is the raw material of the dust core requires good soft magnetic characteristics such as high saturation magnetization and high magnetic permeability, application of Fe-based amorphous alloy powder (Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2004-156134), FeCuNbSiB-based nanocrystal alloy powder (Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 64-28301), or the like has been considered. Accordingly, low core loss and good DC-superposed characteristics can be realized. Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication Nos. 02-180005, 01-68446, 2005-68451, 2007-270271, 2-232301, 57-185957, and 63-117406 are other examples of the above-described related arts.